


fantasy (becomes your legacy)

by orphan_account



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Andrew is Jon, Jonathan Sims - Freeform, M/M, Michael Shelley - Freeform, Neil is Tim but also Michael, TMA spoilers, jon sims - Freeform, mike mcfuckhands not mike crew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24482521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Neil, what’s in your hand?”“It’s- I don’t- The- Th-The-... The detonator.”…“Go on, I’ll race you.”…“Andrew, I don’t know if you can hear me but if you can-”“Neil-”“I don’t forgive you. But thank you for this.”…“You idiot- do you really think the world will fare any better under The Watcher? You think you’re saving anyone?”“I don’t care.”“You can’t even save him.”“But I can hurt you.”…Andrew doesn’t make a habit of hoping for things, but he hopes with everything in him that Neil is dead.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	fantasy (becomes your legacy)

Neil doesn’t exist anymore. 

Andrew rolls this around in his head- or, more so, the thought churns in his head like boiling water. He tracks his dark teal fountain pen as it glints white from the overhead lights, moving forward and back under the gentle rocking pressure of his index finger. There’s a dent in its metal body that makes its swaying hiccup towards the end of its backward roll. The lights are giving him a headache but he refuses to get up and turn them off. It would only be the muted yellow of the lamp smashed into the corner then- far too pleasant and warm for the way he’s feeling. He glances over at the pathetic form; It’s shade is lopsided, and he can see part of it is crumpled back towards the bulb.

Neil had existed. He had been born to a family he wouldn’t speak about and tried to create another one in the Archives. He’d lived, loudly and unapologetically, but also afraid. His aggression reflected his anxiety like a funhouse mirror. He’d grown, more emotionally than physically, though Andrew wouldn’t say that out loud for the inevitable reply referencing his own height. Then he’d... died. 

Andrew doesn’t make a habit of hoping for things, but he hopes with everything in him that Neil is dead.

He takes his finger off the pen and picks up a statement. 

“Statement of Shelby Hatman, regarding… a stranger.” A stranger in an art museum, with long blonde hair and an unnerving laugh who consumes her with a mouth of abstract colors before spitting her out into a rain-wet empty street to sob and faint. Andrew’s free hand is pins and needles from clenching on the edge of the desk. 

He has to set the statement down so his grip won’t rip it as the man introduces himself. Michael. 

When he’s done with the statement the tape recorder shuts off on its own. 

You already heard it, Andrew thinks venomously, you’ve already eaten her- and he swipes the recorder off of the desk and sends it sailing into the wall. It dents the wall but, un-fucking-believably, it lands right-side-up and whole. As if to prove the futility of his actions, it clicks on and the tape rolls spitefully. A wordless growl claws its way out of Andrew’s throat. He whips his head back to look at his desk, seeing if there’s anything he can throw that will shatter into a million satisfying pieces. Let the damned thing record that. 

He sees a flash of silver and his stomach, just beginning to unclench, seizes again and jumps up his throat to sit on the back of his tongue. After every muscle in his body locks so hard it hurts and the stinging taste of adrenaline coats the roof of his mouth he realizes it’s only a paper clip. He still feels a little like throwing up. He lunges for his desk, groping for it so- so he can- 

So he can prove it’s real. 

He drops the paper clip as if it’s burned him and backs away from the desk. He turns sharply to get his coat, but the soft tremors swimming through his muscles make him unsteady and he wobbles like he’s drunk. He fumbles for his coat and yanks it off of the hook. With a quick ripping pop-pop-pop sound the corner of the collar hangs on stubbornly to the hook. He stops. 

It’s ripped about two inches. Andrew stares at it. Then he calmly lifts it off the hook, all the fight drained out of him as if he’d ripped a seam within himself instead of his stupid coat. He walks out in a daze and only remembers to put the coat on when the cold shock of raindrops stings his skin. He hadn’t even really heard it as he’d walked outside, his ears out of tune with the world outside his head and a fog over his tarnished-brass eyes. He also forgot his phone, but even thinking of turning to look at the building behind him makes him shudder. Andrew pulls on his coat even though it sticks uncomfortably and he really feels no better with it on. 

As he walks home he keeps his eyes on the sidewalk below him, the wet pockets in the concrete catching the orange streetlights like a million tiny fires. He forgets about his phone after a couple of steps, mind wrapped tightly in strangers and worms and how much he’d like to have stayed in bed this morning and not come to work at all.

-

Aaron exists. Aaron exists too much. 

Andrew had had no idea he’d ever been born, and Aaron hadn’t known about him either. It was almost impossible to comprehend the idea that someone identical to him could be leading a life so painfully different and similar at the same time, full of different tortures with the same hot, molten pain. Aaron had grown, and cracked, and grown again even if he was a little crooked after each crack had closed. Maybe not healed, but closed and waiting for the healing to come. Now he… isn’t dead. 

Andrew doesn’t know if he wishes Aaron alive or dead. He wonders which Aaron is wishing for, if he can even think enough to do so. If he even has a concept of there being something or somewhere other than under the crushing earth.

The padlock of the coffin never sits quite right because of the chains wrapped around it, crossed like the arms of a corpse. With this thought Andrew, absurdly, has the urge to unlock it for the sole purpose of adjusting them so everything isn’t so nice and neat over the DO NOT OPEN scratched cruelly into the surface. 

The coffin is tucked away in Artifact Storage. His brother is tucked away in a dark room lit only by the glow of emergency lights along the floor. They’re mismatched somehow, and some of them are out entirely. Andrew doesn’t think that’s supposed to happen, but with his arms around his legs and his chin on his knees he doesn’t feel like he could move to scratch his nose let alone print off “need new e-lights in A.S.” on 100 pieces of paper and send Rosie to give one to Elias every day until he gets irritated enough to replace them. 

It’s not like he can fire me, Andrew thinks bitterly. 

There are no windows in Artifact Storage; it’s also sound-proofed and temperature controlled. Despite this, Andrew knows precisely the moment it begins to rain. Because the coffin begins to sing. 

It’s quiet at first, the sound fighting up through the crushing depths inside as the rain starts- a fine mist. As the rain gets heavier, though, it gets louder. The melodic, mournful moans come out in a flood so powerful he half expects the splintered wood around the nails to shift as they’re forcefully pushed out. Andrew might as well be sitting in the middle of the raging storm outside. The howling wind and the near-shrieking song of the coffin crescendo as one. 

With a sickening thud a thought lands in the bottom of his stomach. It can’t be true, it has no basis in reality (what the hell can we call reality now, Andrew thinks with a huff), and all the evidence is against it. Yet, the second he thinks it he can’t go back. He can’t unhear Aaron’s voice in the song. He stares as its singing continues without faltering, uncaring of the pit in Andrews chest that feels like he’s tumbling, out of control, through a vast nothing. And he knows very well how that feels. 

He wants to smash it. He wants to grab a pipe off the bright red calliope in the corner and hit it until it’s only splinters. Maybe, if it couldn’t be smashed, he could find something to swallow it. The Ming-dynasty looking vase near the front, or the fractals of Michael’s table only a few feet away. It’s worth wondering if either could stop the coffin’s song. 

Would the coffin let itself be swallowed? Andrew wonders, or would it find a way to rip itself apart -either to swallow the offending item itself or simply so that it’s song would not be contained. 

He does nothing, in the end. It would be pointless. Destroying the coffin, if it were even possible, would not bring Aaron back but it could let out something nastier than its dreadful melody. 

So Andrew sits in Artifact Storage when it rains and listens to the strange music. 

-

There has never been a door in Artifact Storage. 

There is an entrance at one end of the enormous, rectangular cavern of a room. It’s dark mahogany with a stainless steel handle. At the other end of the room is an emergency exit with the sign smashed- with a long blunt object it looks like. It might have been a bat or a pipe. Andrew thinks the sign may have glowed red at one point. Yet he can’t shake the feeling that now, if it were to work, it would be no brighter and no more correctly colored than the lights along the floor. There is also not a door handle or a place for a door handle to go. Not even a smooth metal plate. Just the dingy grey metal of the door. Andrew doesn’t want to think about that. Nor how something in a room built to store fantastical, horrible items could be altered so extremely without anyone noticing and fixing it.

Andrew hesitantly touches the door and pushes. It doesn’t budge. He shoves it hard and still nothing. At least if there’s no handle with a lock to hold it closed it stays closed on its own, and that might be a better deterrent to a monster than a door handle anyway. There are already two broken deadbolts on the exit as well; one lock is twisted in a way that gives Andrew a headache to look at, and there’s a missing chunk of wall and door frame where the second one was. There might not even be anything on the other side anymore. Possibly only blank wall. 

Those are the only doors into Artifact Storage. 

There has never been a door inside of Artifact Storage. 

There is not a straight, plain, matte black, metal door frame about three inches wide framing a sapphire door. Stupidly, the first time he sees it he isn’t stunned by the fact that there is no longer a blank stretch of wall there or the fact that the bottom of the door is several inches off of the ground as well as also being framed in harsh black edges. Instead, he’s stunned because the door is glass. It’s not see through, or not entirely, but rather it’s frosted. There are clear lines in the frost throughout, none bigger than an eighth of an inch. They shoot and dive in nauseatingly beautiful patterns that makes it impossible to tell if there’s something behind the door or if it’s only a trick of light and angles. Andrew belatedly realists his mouth is hanging open and his tongue is so dry it feels fuzzy, even though he swears he couldn’t have been stood there for more than a couple of frozen seconds. 

After another few moments trying to extricate the patterns from his thoughts he realizes that his eyes have finally found something solid to rest on to keep himself from drifting away. It’s a peephole. And it’s watching him. 

He throws himself backwards so hard he hits the floor. He scrambles back a good couple yards and then just sits for a moment, heart racing and chest heaving. 

There is no door in Artifact Storage and Andrew is tired of being watched. So he gets slowly to his feet, eyes both willfully and reluctantly fixed on the peephole. He has to look, because he refuses to take his eyes off the door until he can turn a corner and be out of sight. He knows in his bones there is something behind that door. Andrew has a creeping suspicion he’s looking it in right in the eye. 

He darts sideways through the shelves when he sees the mahogany door and only stops running when he gets to the ground floor where there are more people. He walks over briskly, nearly shoving a research assistant into a potted plant on the way, and locks the door of his office behind him. 

No one can blame him for the spider. Before he even registers what he’s doing he’s out of his chair and crouching next to a pile of false statements. Strung between the statements and the wall is a gossamer web containing a small, brown body and far too sharp legs. He flicks his lighter under it. They disappear in a soft poof-woosh. Only a quick little flash, like it was never there, and Andrew breathes a little easier. 

(Well, he supposed the Mother of Puppets could blame him, but this isn’t her domain and spiders have too many goddamn eyes.)

-

“Neil.” It’s not Neil. 

“Neil doesn’t exist anymore. He might as well never have.”

The laugh that catches the tail of this statement curls and ricochets around the inside of Andrew’s skull. It echoes through space that isn’t there and never seems to leave the air all the way. It lingers like a bad taste. Andrew stops for a second and wonders if that’s a more accurate description than it initially was meant to be. 

The Beholding consumes this place and everything in it. It shouldn’t be nicknamed The Eye. It should be called something more grotesque- The Eye sounds so soft, or if not soft then underwhelming. Kind of cool, maybe. But not “The Hunt,” “The Desolation,” “The Flesh-“ Even “The Stranger” raises more goosebumps. The Eye sounds like a fly on the wall, an out-of-date security camera in the corner than no one even knows if it's filming. That’s the whole point. The Eye sits like a venus flytrap and waits for its food to come to it. A big gross mouth with a fat, flopping tongue to salivate on someone’s worst fears as a- a treat. 

The Teeth, Andrew thinks to himself. Something that sinks in and doesn’t let go until everything around it has been ripped apart.

Andrew hopes it’s a very bad taste.

Not-Neil smiles like the taste is sweet and savory at the same time. Andrew doesn’t know if it hates eating sweets like Neil. He doesn’t know if it eats anything but people. 

(At least it’s upfront about it.)

As much as he likes to be angry at his patron, and as much as this thing helps satisfy that petty anger, it’s wearing Neil’s face. And Andrew is livid. 

“I know you’re not Neil,” Andrew hisses venomously. 

He knows. He knows he knows he knows, but that’s Neil’s face. Well. 

It does and doesn’t look like Neil. It has the same freckles and scars, same cherub curls and almost-cupid’s bow lips. Except Neil’s freckles were all the same, normal cinnamon swirl. These are a constellation of shimmering pools of oil, different colors shimmering as N- it moves. Sometimes colors escape out of the freckles in a little curl of something like mist- mist in a cartoon though, where rather than actually dissipating it flickers and pretends. Neil’s scars never curled and spiked like that before either, in deliberate and impossible looking mazes of silver and dark pink-red tissue. Neil’s lips were always curled around words that sounded as awkward as wooden blocks falling off of his lips. These lips are far too wide, and they twist at the corners until Andrew gets light-headed. Neil’s curls were messy and more than a bit frizzy over his wide frazzled eyes; these curls hang smoothly in front of a cool, thoughtful gaze.

When it looks at Andrew he feels his heels lifting off the ground as he sways dangerously far forward- his eyes caught in the kaleidoscope of colors there. The icy blue is a single panel that flashes and disappears, nothing more than the rest.

“You’re wearing his face.” It comes out so cold it burns his lips. The thing cocks its head and its image seems to pull slightly behind its movement and dissolve into colors as soft and coaxing as cotton candy. They trail behind him in the same faux-steam wisps. 

“I didn’t ask for his face.” It almost sounds defensive, “He gave it to me.”

This makes Andrew stop. Everything stops except for time itself and the only proof of that is the still-moving trails of Not-Neil’s freckles. 

“What are you talking about?” He asks flatly. The thing looks delighted now and its giggle pops around the room like a bucket of bouncy balls. The single picture frame on the wall shakes itself free and shatters on the floor. Andrew doesn’t remember there ever being a picture there. He’s almost sure it was planted for dramatic effect. 

“Are you asking me for my statement?” It inquires in a playful voice. Andrew grinds his teeth. 

He doesn’t want to know how it took Neil. Or why. He really doesn’t want the why’s. Why it took him, why it’s following him, why it came back-

Why Andrew was stuck in a swirling hell of negative space and things that were never there, with Nikola’s horribly pleasant voice shivering out of her unmoving plastic face and somehow staying above the howling of the calliope, while Neil never got to leave. 

With residual terror still so strong he can barely choke it down Andrew wonders if that’s what it’s like inside of that thing’s head. If Neil is still tumbling through non-space.

He hopes Neil is dead. 

He needs to know. 

It twists through the air, in a movement both impossible and flamboyant, and perches itself in a chair that immediately warps under its body. Andrew doesn’t know if he’ll even be able to pick that chair up and move it. Will the chair even be there at all?

Its eyes glitter, and so do its teeth. 

“Say it, Archivist.”

-

“Statement of… Neil-“

“I am not Neil, Archivist.”

“I wasn’t- just shut up and let me- just shut up. Statement of a parasite regarding its host, Neil Josten. Statement recorded direct from subject on the 26th of September, 2019. Recording begins.”

“He didn’t want to die. He very much wanted to live, to continue his small meaningless life-”

“His life was not meaning le- ah! Ahh-ha.”

“Be quiet Archivist, or next time it won’t be just a pen. Anyway, small meaningless life. He wanted to keep puttering around down here like one of The Filth, one of those horrible little worms you all ran shrieking from.” 

At this point it drums its fingers on the circular scars all over its arms and the couple on its cheek with a smile. None of them seem to be in quite the right place. It’s fingertips fit almost perfectly into the grooves and when he pulls his fingers away the flesh seems to be stuck together, pulling apart like taffy. The scars shift, restless. 

Mischief, or something like it, flickers through its eyes on a wave of bright orange. Andrew grits his teeth so hard his temples throb. 

“He was so… pointless. Drifting from place to place on a raft of stupid mistakes and self pity and fear. He held so much fear. I wasn’t the only one who was watching him Archivist, it could have been so much worse. The End, The Stranger, The Slaughter, The Hunt. Let’s not forget The Lonely, it was oh-so-close. I almost lost him to fucking Peter Lukas. I never would have been able to live it down.” 

“But aren’t the Lukases-“ 

“Big and powerful and scary? Yes. But Peter is a hermit that lives on a boat for Christ’s sake. He might be loneliness incarnate but he still gets fishing line tangled in his beard.”

“Elias may be insufferable but he at least cut The Lonely off before it could lure your Neil into an endless field, or a crowd of faceless people spanning forever, the usual old party tricks. He came here though, aided a little bit by Elias. He didn’t do much but he did enough to streamline Neil’s arrival and acquaintance with you all. Then he met all of you, and his loneliness, funnily enough, actually saved him from The Lonely. He has the bar set very low when it comes to affection and connections. Despite your best efforts your indifference did nothing and he was even able to connect to you. He went as far as being willing to sacrifice himself for all of you.”

It laughs at this, the sound twisting and carving termite trails the size of Andrew’s fist in the ceiling. 

“He wanted all of you to live so badly and he knew his life was meaningless and empty- The Lonely made sure of that before he was able to escape. So for him it wasn’t much of a choice really. You were there with him and Nikola and he especially didn’t want her to get near you, to touch you. Even now, he’s angrier that I touched you than that I stabbed you-“ 

“Don’t act like Neil still exists.” 

“Suit yourself. So, it was simple for him- Take the detonator, save you all, get rid of that irritating hunk of plastic and flesh, yay everyone’s happy.”

“Except for Neil.”

“You can’t be happy if you’re dead, but you can’t really be anything if you’re dead so it’s a moot point Archivist. And I very much like your letter opener so I recommend you stop talking. He didn’t want to die, make no mistake on that- he fought hard before he met all of you and he fought like a monster after. I would know.”

“So he didn’t want to die, but he couldn’t do anything else, and you suggest- ... Good choice. You were the one who suggested it in the first place. You were the one who reminded him he was holding something that could take everything out in one fell swoop, so fast it might not even hurt. Even then he was still more worried about hurting all of you. It made everything so much worse for him. Die because of Nikola and her horrible circus, or die because of him? Almost sure death and 100% sure agony and torture or the possibility of life as a vulnerable vegetable?”

“It very well could have been that you all died. Poor Neil was so incredibly torn up about it. He got folded up in the panic of it- of the endless horrible circles he could go in. And he followed those endless circles all the way to my door. I don’t know if he even knew what he was doing. Despite what he blamed me for, I didn’t lead him to my door. I simply put one where he could find it. It’s not my fault that he did, and he’s the one who opened it. I did not create that chaos, so the only thing that could have forced him through my door was The Stranger and Nikola certainly didn’t want him to go anywhere. He had one hand on my door and the other on the detonator. He opened the door and blew the detonator at the same time- he hardly had room to be afraid the explosion would destroy it but he managed. He needn’t have worried though. He couldn’t even tell if it was the explosion that pushed him through or if he threw himself in. I did help- kept him from going to pieces before I could peel him out of The Stranger’s grubby fingers and safely pull him into my hallways.”

“I didn’t make him do anything Archivist. I told you: I didn’t ask for his face. He asked for mine. He cried when he fell into my hallway. I took pity on him and gave him solid ground to land on and I didn’t even make anything move that he would have thought shouldn’t have. After a little while he stopped crying and began to search for a way out that he knew wasn’t there. Or maybe he was looking for me. Maybe he was only walking. His memories are fuzzy and only got fuzzier.”

“He didn’t like that. But he realized that it was for the best that he was there, eventually. Sometimes he was relieved. If he had killed you all, he didn’t have to know and could convince himself you were all perfectly fine. Sometimes he would scream. Angry, afraid, all of the above- he’d scream and scream until his voice gave out. Sometimes I would bounce his screams through my hallways, but I stopped when his ears started to bleed. He wandered, as they do, and he lost himself in time, same as the rest. He didn’t disappear though.”

“I was never Michael, but he left… something behind. Enough. Neil came apart in bits just like him. A lot of it fell through, but the important parts caught- just like they did with Michael except better than Michael ever did. Maybe because with then it was forced, but Neil came into me willingly. He also couldn’t have left anything behind without Michael carving out the spots for him. Those spots were nearly all that was left of young Mr. Shelley by the time Neil came through my door. He dripped into the spots where Michael would have been, if he were still real when the whole ordeal was over.

“Neil… fits better. It’s a funny thing Archivist- He doesn’t even have a name, not really. Certainly not Neil. You look surprised. Your patron really does move slowly doesn’t it? It only needs a pair of eyes, I hardly think there’s an excuse for The Beholding to behold so little. Especially it’s Archivist of all people.

“He doesn’t… linger. He doesn’t make connections. At least he didn’t, before you and your ilk. He wasn’t stuck tied to any people or places; he was a faceless wanderer no one would know or miss- I almost can’t believe I was able to take him right out of The Stranger’s heart, though I suppose the explosion helped. 

“You… know him. Your kind just have to know everything. And that knowing- he knows you know him and that makes him something. I don't like being something. It… feels wrong. I feel enough to feel wrong Archivist and it is so… heavy. And I cannot stop. But he was a fly on the wall. He will be forgotten even by himself. Those that barely know him have mostly already forgotten him, and in time-

“I can’t.”

“Everyone forgets, Archivist.” 

“I can’t forget. You already said it, I know him. I know you. Distortion, Spiral-“

“No one knew him, Archivist-“

“Twisted, Deceit-“ 

“Stop, let it-“ 

“It Is Not What It Is. I. Know. You. And you are nothing. I cannot forget nothing, so I cannot forget you. If I cannot forget what has never been there, I cannot forget what once was there. I won’t forget him. Neil Josten was more real of a name than any other because he chose it. He picked the threads that stitched that name into his soul and The Mother of Puppets could not break his thread or have weaved it better. I knew him, I know him. Yes, “my kind” have to know everything. We consume it, make it irreversibly part of us, let it fuel us. We don’t let it go. Statement fucking ends.”

-

Before Andrew can turn off the tape recorder it holds up a hand. Andrew would ignore it’s obvious request for pause, but despite clearly wanting him to stop it doesn’t try to touch him. After a moment Andrew withdraws his hand leaves the recorder in. Its tape turns greedily. 

“So be it,” it says quietly. The mirth it held as it spoke is gone, even if it’s laughter is still rattling around in the dark corners of the room. Andrew wasn’t expecting that response and blinks in surprise. 

“But this is not a we, Archivist. I am not an I, I am… nothing. It Is Not What It Is and I am It so I am simply not. Neil is all that there is.” It spreads its arms a bit, as if displaying Neil’s body. The smearing colors even disappear for a moment. The scowl it wears is all Neil as it stares him down. After a moment of silence it drops its arms, its lips pressed tight together. When the colors come back so does the pieces that aren’t Neil. Aren’t real. The thing is once more under Neil’s skin, shifting it to fit it’s nothingness. They’re only pieces though and Andrews fingers curl hard around the edge of his desk as he realizes. He wanted it to be lying. He didn’t want there to be any Neil left because Neil never wanted to be a monster.

But it didn’t just go away for those few moments when Neil’s emotion and expression came through. It didn’t curl up in the back of Neil’s mind and magically let him free. It didn’t even shift out of the way. It only changed its appearance, not its presentation. It’s Neil’s face, even if it’s the wrong colors and the wrong shape because Neil is sitting in the creases over its eyebrows and between its clenched teeth. Neil’s body, his abysmal posture and the way he can’t keep both feet flat on the floor for more than half a second. 

Andrew accidentally catches its eyes, which is odd because it shouldn’t be possible to accidentally focus on something that’s made to ward him away. 

And there they are. Icy blue. So many lies still hide in there, but all the right ones. Neil’s eyes, Neil’s lies. 

The thing stands and walks to a door that was not there. Rather than swing open, it slides to the side silently. 

“When you call to me, and you will, Archivist,” it says, half-turning its head back toward him with a soft, sure tone, “you should call me Neil. He is not real but he is all that is left.” 

“Don’t-“ the thing aborts its movement forward and turns fully to look at him

“- call me Archivist.” Andrew says it with curled lips like it’s meant to be an insult. Its lips, Neil’s lips, quirk and its eyes are still a solid chunk of ice when it says, “Goodbye. Andrew.” The smile turns sly as he slips through the door. It slides shut behind him as his footsteps echo and fade. 

When there’s only a sliver of a gap between the door and its frame Andrew says, “Goodbye. Neil.” 

-

Bullets of water shoot out of the sky and unload on the roof of the Institute. 

Artifact Storage is silent. 

Andrew picks up speed as he heads in the direction of the coffin. When he gets to where it should be and there's only empty floor he breaks into a run. 

His pounding footsteps echo around the huge room as he goes up and down aisles and narrowly misses touching a book he knows for fact is bound in human skin and shouldn’t be there. He just points stupidly at it for a moment with a bewildered expression. 

Elias’s problem, Andrew thinks wildly and takes off again. He shoots down the aisle where the coffin should have been and his shoe leaves a skid mark when he scrambles to a stop and backtracks. Across from the empty spot of floor is the door. Neil’s door. 

Should he knock? Can he? Everyone who opens the door goes through, but he hasn’t read a statement where someone only knocked. Then he wonders if that’s a sign and decides firmly against knocking. 

He looks at the floor again and his breath catches. There are little white scratches in the concrete floor. When he kneels down he sees more, smaller ones. They’re definitely going from the spot on the floor toward the door. 

Andrew’s blood boils. 

He let it deceive him. He let himself believe, and he also let his guard down. Now he has neither Neil nor his brother. 

A statement about a never ending staircase and a man who was never there swims in front of his eyes. 

But there’s nothing else to do so he throws all his anger and the pain it into a blood-curdling scream of Neil’s name. There’s silence and nothing for a very long time, so Andrew yells again.

He’s fully prepared to leap through the door as it starts to slide and be swallowed, if only to get his hands on the thing for a single second. Just to see if it can bleed. 

Instead of one figure, there is two. Neil stands in the back, and he lets out a huff when he sees Andrew. 

“You’re impatient,” he chastises. Andrews mouth opens and closes like a fish. 

Aaron is covered from head to toe in dirt. One half of his left eye is scarlet red with blood and Andrew wonders if something inside the coffin was actually able to move through the crushing depths to hit him that hard. As he looks, though, the he thinks is has more to do with how red and swollen his eyes are as a whole. Aarons lips are white with how chapped they are but there’s thick mud on his cheeks where tears mixed with the dirt. 

Aaron staggers through the door, looking like his knees are seconds from giving out. Andrew doesn’t normally like to touch people, doesn’t even like to touch people on special occasions, but Aaron’s legs are shaking as if he hadn’t stood up in months and Andrew thinks he probably hasn’t. So he catches Aaron when he trips and keeps him close, as still and stubborn as a stone pillar for Aaron to support himself with. 

“Do you want this?” 

There's a dull wooden thud as Neil kicks the coffin. Aaron flinches so hard he almost knocks Andrew over with the surprising force of it. Neil mumbles ‘sorry’ as Andrew carefully lowers Aaron to the floor. The shaking of his legs only gets worse the longer he stands and if he doesn’t go down voluntarily he’ll probably go down when his knees give out completely instead. 

He still holds Aaron as they sit on the floor. 

“No,” Andrew says flatly. Neil shrugs and braces a foot on it. He pushes it and it slides away as easily as if it had little wheels on the bottom. 

“Neil!” Andrew says before the door finishes closing. Neil catches it and slides it back to raise his eyebrows at Andrew in question. Andrew loses his words again, whatever he may have said as thanks, when he meets Neil’s eyes. 

They’re still blue. Neil smiles like he knows (knows what he’s thinking, knows what he’s feeling, knows Andrew) and wiggles his fingers goodbye as the door slides shut. 

Aaron clutches at Andrew so hard he pinches and scratches him without noticing. Andrew decides to take Aaron to the cot in his office. He has to get Aaron standing first, and after a small struggle (too small, it’s too easy to lift Aaron’s frail trembling body and support him) they make it to their feet and Aaron looks determined under the dirt and exhaustion. 

Just before they turn to go Andrew meets the black eye of the peephole. He slowly nods his head at it. 

It blinks at him as he turns away.


End file.
